This thesis seeks to show the pattern of red-baiting used in the United States to counter various forms of “subversive” social change. The paper illustrates how the issue of anti-communism was used as a political tool on the national level, and this tactic would trickle down to the state and local level, specifically into the public school systems. Focusing on Orleans Parish public schools, the narrative of red-baiting and anti-communist rhetoric is brought to life through the trials of Fortier High School. This study will chronicle how teachers became the tools of nation-building through state-sponsored “Americanism” programs. Students of Fortier and other high schools in the region were taught that to be American means specifically not to be Communist. This then is a contribution to the continuity of the politics of anti-communism in the United States from the New Deal to the Cold War eras.

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